Cancer is a family affair. Protection against this disease is also a family affair. A new idea for protection is not equal in impact as any other. What do you do when there is conflict within and between the available recommendations?

The trigger was a gene. In service to humanity was a tiny fly, Drosophila spp aka fruit fly. This space pioneer that was flown to space first for radiation studies has been a model in genetics and cancer research. Some three quarters of human genes are found to have an equivalent in the fruit fly. Those pretty red eyes in the Drosophila photo have given us a clue to control cancer.

Photo: University of Nebraska - Lincoln

February 6, 2009 dates the FDA announcement of a new class of drugs made in living organisms altered by scientists as producers instead of chemical factories. ATryn signifies USA's first approval for a biological product made by genetically engineered (GE) animals. A therapeutic protein, ATryn, is derived from the milk of goats that have been genetically altered by introducing a segment of DNA (called a recombinant DNA or rDNA construct) into their genes for the animal to produce human antithrombin in its milk.

A mystery is solved for me today: the "flies" on my rice paper plant flowers are the wild native bees that make honey! The ancients of the Americas hunted for the honey of the stingless, domestic-fly-size bees, Trigonae and Meliponoae, for example, to sweeten their cocoa drinks long before the arrival of Columbus.